Needs more butter

Football Manager 2018: The Man Utd “Challenge” Part 5

The busy December period is upon us, with some good performance and a little luck hopefully we can nail down top spot in our Champions League group and also stay top of the Premier League. Also in the last part, I said we would need to be well beaten by Spartak to lose top place, well… that isn’t true. Just losing would be enough, which I didn’t realize till it was too late. We have the Manager of the Month award to start the month, unfortunately, we came 2nd behind Wenger.

The first game of December is away to Burnley, it was even game but we were able to take our chances. A good pass from Mkhitaryan set Rashford up to slot in the opening goal. Then only a few minutes later an underlapping run from Valencia was spotted by Pogba and he played him through and Valencia did the rest. It was because of a missed header by Bailly that Sam Vokes got in to score. Overall a good win away to start the month.

The draw for the FA cup 3rd round was only a few days after the game and just like in real life we draw Derby.

Then soon after because of my amazing performance as manager, the board propose a new contract and well…

Not only am I now on a lot of money but I also get given loads more money to spend.

Not quite 100 Million but… you know, I’m not going to moan about it. Just think I will try and unsettle some young English talent.

That DEFINITELY say’s Cook ok, none of your jokes… okay then.

Going into the game I thought we were guaranteed 1st but turns out that wasn’t true. Not only did we play badly and lost, Gomes got injured again. We only managed 1 shot on target so there much improvement ahead. We finish 2nd and before the draw for the last 16, we have 4 place Leicester in the league.

A good performance from us restricting Leicester to only 5 shots all game with 1 on target. Despite that, it took a late goal from substitute Martial to gives us all 3 points. Carrick’s corner was headed clear back towards Carrick, he played to Young, another late sub who drilled in a low cross for Martial to direct home. CL draw was up next and just like in real life again we get…

Sevilla, considering we finished 2nd in our group this is the best draw we could have got.

Going into the game Bournemouth were in 3rd place, this was still a game we should have won. We conceded a sloppy early goal with Pugh cutting back to Arter to finish it. Then just before half time Inaki Williams dribbled down the right side, crossed into Rashford who knocked it down for Mkhitaryan to score the equalizer. We would go on to be the better team but then with 15 minutes to go Young got booked for a late tackle then decided to abuse the ref getting himself another booking seeing red, which killed the game. Zlatan came on and got injured again and is now out for 4 months making him a complete waste of money.

He’s not that old, to be injuring his hip when he run’s but whatever.

Arsenal next up in the league, going into this one Arsenal were in 2nd place and well they battered us. Our strikerless formation proving completely ineffective, the inverted wingbacks being our biggest problem with all 3 goals Arsenal scored being from crosses after getting beyond them.

Another away game next, the game was even in terms of stats but we had more clear cut chances that we didn’t take. Anyway, Inaki Williams put us in front after some good work on the left flank by Luke Shaw who’s back post cross was headed in. Swansea’s leveler was identical with Rangel crossing to the back stick for Ayew to head in.

Back to winning ways at home to Stoke a game which we completely dominated, a very good performance from the lads. Inaki Williams took on Martins Indi and crossed for Martial to volley in after 3 minutes. It was Williams’ cross that caused problems again as it bounced around the box, eventually finding it’s way to Blind who played in Martial who stuck past Butland at his near post. Stoke couldn’t even muster a single shot on target a very good win.

A frustrating game, again we didn’t take our chances, but overall we played well. Tom Cleverley of all people set up Richarlison to smash it past De Gea. Not really much else to say, I guess with Lukaku coming back the strikerless formation maybe dropped for a while.

A major cock up on my part saw us lose 1st place in the Champions League group but we got a good draw against Sevilla so things are ok there. In the last part, I said I wanted 16 points from our league games and we only managed 11. Not the best month, just like the start of the month we found ourselves in 2nd place behind Wenger. It may only be on goal difference but it’s still annoying.

Not going to do a points target for January just going to see how it goes with the only thing I expect is to beat Derby in the FA Cup. See you then.